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Thursday, September 11, 2014

Submit, Humans! Charlton Neo Submissions Guidelines

Getting into the comic
book business can be downright impossible these days. More and more, the major
publishers are closing their doors to blind submissions, especially for
writers. At Charlton Neo, we know you have stories to tell. And you know what?
We want to give you the chance to tell them.

At this time, we have an open-door policy where we will look
at and review every submission that is sent to us. That’s not a guarantee that
every proposal sent to us will see publication. In fact, most will more than
likely be rejected outright. But if you have the talent, and you have the determination
to make it in this business, then we will give you a chance to break into
comics.

We know that comic books about superheroes are
great, but they are not the be-all and end-all of this medium, especially at Charlton Neo. If you have a
superhero that you think we will want to see, by all means, send him, or her,
on in. But we like variety. That’s why we also want to see your Western stories, horror stories, romance stories, detective stories, funny
animal stories, science fiction stories, and war stories.We’re open to all
genres.

Now, in spite of our lenient take on new submissions, we
still have a few rules that we want you to follow.

First, all submissions must be sent to this email
address: submit2Neo@morttodd.com. Please, do not submit anything directly to a
member of the editorial staff unless they specifically ask you to do so. This
is for your benefit more than anything else. After all, emails sent to a
private account can get lost in the shuffle or even marked as junk mail and discarded.
This way you know your submission will be seen and evaluated.

Second, we currently publish anthology titles, with
stories typically running between 5 - 10 pages. Please do not submit
proposals for book-length stories. If you’re a writer and are submitting a stand-alone story,
we ask that you just send us a brief summary of your tale (usually a paragraph or
two is enough for us to determine if there is anything there worth pursuing).
Be sure to give us a beginning, a middle and an end and hit the highlights in
between. If you’re pitching a series, we would like to see a bit more
information. Your series summary can be as long as one to two pages. Be sure
to hit the highlights regarding your series. We want to know where your series
begin? Who are your main characters? What are their motivations? What are the
conflicts in your series? Also, if you have a conclusion in mind, tell us how
your epic ends.

Please submit no more than TWO (2) pitches or stories at a time. You can pitch another TWO (2)only after you have received our response to your original pitches.

Third, if you’re an artist, we ask that you send us at least
five sample pages. If you’re a penciler, we want to see that you can do sequential
artwork. Pin-ups and splash pages are nice, but given the limited page count we
have for our stories, we need pencilers who can juggle as many as seven or
eight panels per page. If you’re an inker, we would like to see your work and
copies of the original penciled pages for comparison.

Finally, and this is the most important rule of all, we ask
that you be patient. We know you’re eager to get started making comics. We know
that because we were all in your shoes once. We know what it is like to wait
and wait and wait to find out if a publisher wanted to use your work or not.
But keep in mind, the review process does take time. And trust me, if you get
the nod, that wait will be so worth it in the end.

Thanks for the reply! I can't wait to see these new stories. The war genre was such a big part of Charlton's history. It would be amazing to see some of the old Charlton characters revived. The Iron Corporal and Shotgun Harker come to mind, but any new material is welcome. Keep up all the good work!